Sleepy Hollow (1999)
| running time = 105 min. | country = USA | language = English | budget = $65,000,000 | gross revenue = $101,068,340 (US) $206,071,502 (Worldwide) IMDB; Sleepy Hollow (1999); Business | preceded by = | followed by = }} Plot In 1799, New York City, police constable Ichabod Crane is outraged at the government for their methods of dealing with murders, viewing them as primitive. He is then dispatched by his superiors to the Westchester County hamlet of Sleepy Hollow, New York to test his more modern tactics and is to investigate a series of brutal slayings in which the victims have been found decapitated. A pioneer of new, unproven investigative techniques such as finger-printing and autopsies, Crane arrives in Sleepy Hollow armed with his bag of scientific tools only to be informed by the town's elders that the murderer is not of flesh and blood. Crane is told that the killer is a headless supernatural warrior from beyond the grave that rides at night on a massive black steed. He is then told the story of how this person was a Hessian who fought in the American revolutionary war and had a high lust for carnage compared to his comrades. Eventually he was beheaded by american soldiers and now he roams the night beheading people. Crane begins his own investigation, remaining highly skeptical about the supernatural elements in the case until he encounters the Headless Horseman himself. Boarding a room at the home of the town's richest family, the Van Tassels, Crane is introduced to their daughter, Katrina whom he develops an attraction to much to the anger of her boyfriend, Brom Van Brunt. Delving further into the mystery with the aid of the orphaned Young Masbath, whose father was recently run down and decapitated by the Horseman, Crane discovers within the Western Woods the Horseman's grave, as well as his entry point into the natural world from the supernatural — the gnarled Tree of the Dead. Katrina shows up to assist due to no one else volunteering to venture into the woods with him in which Ichabod appreciated. Crane digs up the Horseman's body to see that the skull is missing, suspecting that is why the Hessian returns to the living to behead people. The Horseman attacks the Sleepy Hollow again one night, murdering an entire family and both Ichabod and Brom try to take him down, only resulting in Brom being brutally bisected and Ichabod being stabbed but luckily survived. For so long, Crane has been plagued by nightmares of his mother's horrific torture by his father when he was a child, opening up to Katrina about them which causes the two to grow closer. The murders continue and Crane is advised to leave because of his failure to cease the killings. He soon uncovers a murky plot revolving around revenge and land rights with the Horseman controlled by Katrina's stepmother Lady Van Tassel, who tells Katrina she witnessed the Horseman's death when she was a child and sends the killer after Katrina to solidify her hold on what she considers her property, a piece of land unjustly claimed by Katrina's father. Following an encounter with the Horseman in the local windmill in which Crane, Katrina and Masbath barely escape and a stagecoach chase through the woods, Crane is shot in the heart by Lady Van Tassel but a book Katrina gave to him earlier stops the bullet, Katrina ironically telling him upon giving it to him "Keep it close to your heart." Crane then thwarts Lady Van Tassel by returning the skull to the Horseman, who regains his head and flesh and goes back to Hell along with Lady Van Tassel who he takes as his slave. With his job in Sleepy Hollow over, Crane, with Katrina and Young Masbath, returns to New York (where he describes as where "the Bronx is up and the Battery is down..."—Tim Burton's nod to the song "New York, New York (On the Town)" by Leonard Bernstein), in time for the new century. Cast Notes & Trivia * Copyright holder: 1999, Karol Film Productions GmbH & Co. KG. * Sleepy Hollow is inspired by the short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving, first published in 1820 in The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon. * Production on Sleepy Hollow began on November 27th, 1998. Principal filming concluded on May 10th, 1999. It was filmed in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England with some interior scenes being shot at Hatfield House. * Sleepy Hollow grossed $30,060,467 over it's opening weekend, November 21st-23rd, 1999. * Sleepy Hollow was released on VHS and DVD by Paramount Home Video on May 23rd, 2000. Amazon.com; Sleepy Hollow/DVD It was released on Blu-ray by Paramount on June 3rd, 2008. Amazon.com; Sleepy Hollow/Blu-ray It was also released as a double-feature Blu-ray collection along with Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street on July 19th, 2011. That film was also directed by Tim Burton and stars Johnny Depp. Amazon.com; Sweeney Todd & Sleepy Hollow/Blu-ray * Sleepy Hollow is Tim Burton's fourth feature film in the genres of horror and dark fantasy. * This is the third Tim Burton film to star Johnny Depp. Depp previously played noted film director Edward D. Wood, Jr. in the 1994 biopic Ed Wood and before that, he played tormented scientific experiment Edward Scissorhands in the 1990 film of the same name. Recommendations * The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (short) * The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (short story) * The Adventures of Ichabod and Mister Toad (1949) See also * Decapitation * Horses External Links * * * * Sleepy Hollow at Wikipedia * References ---- Category:1999 films Category:Paramount Pictures Category:Mandalay Pictures Category:American Zoetrope Category:Karol Film Productions Category:Tim Burton Productions